Teenager Jay Slater who went missing in Tenerife called a friend to say he was lost and running out of water.

A British teenager who went missing in Tenerife made a panicked phone call to a friend to say he was lost and needed water as he crossed a remote mountain range.

Jay Slater, a 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, disappeared on Monday morning after attending a three-day music festival in the south of the island.

He reportedly left the event on Sunday evening with a group of people and was last heard wandering around Teno Rural National Park, in the northwest of the island.

A temperature of 26 degrees Celsius was recorded on the day of his disappearance.

Lucy Mae, a friend who reported him missing to authorities, said she received a phone call around 8 a.m. Monday from Mr. Slater, in which he told her his phone was down to one percent. battery.

He had tried to walk back to the apartment where he had spent the night before being unable to catch a bus, Ms Mae said.

She told the Manchester Evening News: “One of the people he met hired a car to get out of here, so he drove them back to his flat and Jay went without realizing how bad it was. was far away.

“He ended up in the middle of nowhere. Jay obviously thought he could go home from there.

“But in the morning he went for a walk, using his maps on his phone and found himself in the middle of the mountains with nothing around.

“He called me to tell me his phone was at 1%, he said 'I don't know where I am, I need a drink and my phone is about to die '”.

The phone is dead

Mr Slater's phone died at around 8.50am, with his last known location recorded in Teno Rural Park, near a hiking trail, several hundred meters above the small village of Masca.

Mountain rescuers, drones and a helicopter scoured the area for any sign of the teenager. He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt with shorts, sneakers and a black bag.

His mother Debbie Duncan flew to the island on Tuesday with her other son Zak to help with the rescue efforts.

She said the distance from her last known location to the apartment was about a 10-hour walk.

She told the Mail Online: “[I’m] beside myself with worry. He had been at a three-day festival, so he would have consumed quite a bit of alcohol, but Jay was using Snapchat with friends before disappearing and seemed very calm.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are supporting the family of a British man missing in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities. »